Abstract:
Real-life mineral nucleation and growth are seldom homogeneous, bulk solution processes. Minerals frequently grow under the spatial confinement of pores. The consequences of mineral growth under confinement affect many natural and anthropogenic environments. These include: built cultural heritage and modern infrastructure where new minerals crystallize and cause disintegration; geological formations where mineral replacement may lead to fracturing and cohesive failure; subsurface geological reservoirs where anthropogenic injection of CO2 changes the existing mineral assemblages with unknown consequences for the reservoir’s permeability; and Portland cement where mineral dissolution-reprecipitation govern its robust cohesive properties. Depending on the setting, the confined mineral growth may be perceived as disadvantageous or desired. In both cases, there is a pressing need to better understand and control mineral growth in pores. In this talk, I will give an overview of various types of confined mineral growth and its consequences for the porous matrix they grow within. My experimental approach relies on the surface forces apparatus (SFA). SFA is so far the only well-established technique that can provide measurements of nano- to microscale, distance-resolved surface forces in a confined geometry during mineral growth inside pores. I will also discuss surface forces acting during cohesive and damaging growth of minerals in pores.